Thursday, April 26, 2018

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up – Seven Not Entirely Amusing Stories from Russia

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 26 – One of the challenges
of trying to cover what is happening in Russia is that it is a country where
things that don’t happen often do – or at least are reported to have occurred –
forcing one to try to establish whether they are true or the latest example of
Russian “fake” news.

Today brings an especially rich
harvest of Russian stories that are too wonderful not to be true – and in fact
they are. Here are the seven best:

·New Russian Vodka
Brand has Same Name as Poison Used Against Skripal.Russians can now drink a vodka which bears
the same name as the nerve agent that Russian operatives used against the
Skripals in the United Kingdom. With luck, those who consume it won’t suffer
the same consequences (facebook.com/dimitar.bechev.1/posts/10160400232180392).

·Those Fighting the
Russian Opposition May Soon Outnumber It.In a survey of the increasing plethora of organizations the Kremlin has
set up to fight the opposition, US-based Russian journalist Kseniya Kirillova
concludes that “the number of those fighting the opposition in rusisa will soon
exceed the number of opposition figures” (svoboda.org/a/29188787.html).

·Officials Thrilled
Share of Russians Now Forced to Economize has Fallen from 70 to 64 Percent.Although two-thirds of all Russians say that the
economic crisis has forced them to economize, Russian officials seem thrilled
by a slight decline over the past year, to the horror of some commentators who
say the government is ignoring the big picture (forum-msk.org/material/news/14581750.html).

·Russian Embassy Gets
It Wrong: Nizhny Novgorod isn’t Novgorod Veliky. The Russian embassy
in Lisbon has put out a booklet about the upcoming World Cup competition in
which they illustrate the page for Nizhny Novgorod with a picture of Novgorod
Veliky, an entirely different city and one where there won’t be any football
matches (versia.ru/v-broshyure-k-chm-2018-nizhnij-novogorod-pereputali-s-velikim-novgorodom).